November 11, 2005

Neighborhood Council Discusses Crime, Noise, Snow

By | November 11, 2005

Yesterday evening two dozen Ithacans, running the gamut from Common Council members to businesspeople to police officers, gathered for a monthly Collegetown Neighborhood Council meeting at St. Luke Lutheran Church on Oak Street. Attendees discussed pertinent Collegetown issues like crime, noise ordinances, snow removal and pedestrian safety.

What Collegetown residents need to know: according to Christine Barksdale of the Ithaca Police Department (IPD), December and January are prime months for burglars and squatters to take advantage of a cleared-out Collegetown. Barksdale voiced concern that few students know about, much less make use of, Request for Security Check forms that can be turned into IPD before they go out of town. These forms tell police officers if a house should be empty during a certain period and how to contact the owner or tenant if they discover the house is not.

“This would really help our job,” Barksdale said, lamenting that students rarely interact with IPD. “Students need to take responsibility for this, not just landlords.”

Gary Stewart, assistant director of community relations at Cornell and council co-chair, suggested the possibility of establishing campus locations where students could conveniently drop off the forms.

Another point of interest for Collegetown residents is that the community police board will try to keep custodial versus non-custodial arrests for noise violations consistent between the fall and the spring semesters, according to Common Council member Michael Taylor ’05 (D-4th Ward). In other words, the number of students handcuffed and taken to court to post bail for noise violations will no longer spike during the spring semester, when Taylor said city officials fear students may graduate before showing up in court.

“Having people detained for noise violations is not an efficient use of resources,” Taylor said, acknowledging the police chief’s goal of keeping the percentage of custodial arrests consistently low year-round.

Taylor also said numbers showed that only one percent of students did not show up in court on the appointed date and that the idea of students escaping financial and judicial penalties by graduating was a myth.

Conversation moved to snow removal, which continues to pose a serious problem during winter months. Common Council member Joel Zumoff MS ’70 (D-3rd ward) noted that this was a real concern among areas with high concentrations of student renters.

“There’s always the question of who’s responsible for shoveling,” Zumoff said, explaining that landlords sometime expect students to shovel, and students often expect landlords to take care of it.

Kyle Couchman, who is manager of Po Family Realty and owns numerous properties on College Ave., expressed frustration with the fact that residents complain the snow isn’t removed quickly enough. “Sometimes we finish shoveling and salting, and then the snow plows come in and bury the sidewalks in slush,” he said.

Taylor announced that Common Council will hold a meeting on Dec. 7 that allows for public comment on the problem of finding immediate solutions to icy, snowy sidewalks. These sidewalks pose problems for certain Ithacans, especially those who are disabled.

Meeting attendees also touched on the parking shortage, the possibility of a new crosswalk and better traffic signal at the College Avenue and Dryden Road intersection, and the slew of unaddressed copies of The Wall Street Journal that Couchman said “pile up like crazy” at the doorstep of Collegetown residences.

Betsy Po, owner of Po Family Realty and a 20-year Collegetown resident, spoke on a number of problem areas: broken meters, poor traffic lights, and general neglect of Collegetown over Ithaca’s downtown area.

According to her, Collegetown should not be an eyesore. “It’s what the parents first see,” Po said.

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ByNovember 14, 2005

The fairy tale season proved too good to be true for the volleyball team this weekend, as the Red saw its undefeated league record crumble with losses to Penn Friday night, 3-2, and to Princeton on Saturday, 3-0. If second-place Yale defeats Brown on Wednesday, the Red would have to face the Bulldogs in a playoff match for the league’s berth in the NCAA tournament. “It’s a little bit unreal,” said senior co-captain Kelly Kramer. “It’s disappointing. We didn’t come out of this weekend the way we had hoped, but I think it was a learning experience.” Although junior outside hitter Elizabeth Bishop broke the Cornell record for career kills agaisnt the Quakers, leading the Red (19-5, 12-2 Ivy) with 17 kills and 20 digs on the night, the Red could not make the big plays needed to escape with a win. Kramer added 20 digs from her libero position, while sophomore defensive specialist Kara Zaragoza had 16. Sophomore setter Amy Gordon had 30 assists, while senior co-captain Whitney Fair had 13. Penn (10-15, 7-6) beat the Red with a balanced offense, as four players reached double-digits in kills on the night. Laura Black had 16, while Kathryn Turner contributed 13. Two players had double-doubles, with Anna Shlimak coming up with 17 kills and 23 digs and Kara Thomason adding 18 kills and 30 digs. Elizabeth Hurst led the defense with a match-high 33 digs, and Linda Zhang saved her best performance of the season for the match against Cornell, handing out 62 assists. The Red started off slow against Penn, dropping the first game, 30-22. However, the team regrouped and fought its way to a 2-1 lead with 30-25 and 30-20 wins in Game 2 and 3, respectively. The Quakers took Game 4, 30-25, forcing a tiebreaker. Despite the comeback earlier in the match, the Red could not put the Quakers away, falling 15-10 in the final game. “We made mistakes at crucial times and they had the momentum,” Kramer said. Penn out-hit Cornell, .220-.147, for the match, including a .400-.190 edge in the final game. The Quakers also limited the impact of Cornell’s junior middle blocker Joanna Weiss, who lead the conference with a .408 hitting percentage but was held to .188 for the match, converting on only 4-of-16 kill attempts. “I think Penn played better than we expected,” head coach Deitre Collins said. “We didn’t rise to the level we needed to be at until the end, and it wasn’t enough.” Cornell couldn’t recover its winning form against Princeton the next night, as the Red dropped a match without winning at least one game for the first time in 2005 since it’s season opener. “With Princeton, you never know what you’re going to get when you play them and we got an amazing team on the other side of the net,” Kramer said. “We just couldn’t take advantage of their weaknesses.” Bishop led the Red once again, recording a match-high 15 kills on .250 hitting and adding 19 digs for a double-double. Senior outside hitter Rachel Adomat and junior right side Alaina Town added nine digs each, Kramer had a team-high 26 digs, and Gordon haned out 26 assists. Jenny McReynolds provided the spark for the Tigers (16-8, 7-6), registering 40 digs in an outstanding defensive effot. Lauren Grument and Parker Henritze added 12 kills each, while Lindsey Ensign also reached double figures with 11 kills. Emily Turner added four service aces, and Jenny Senske had a match-high 45 assists. The Tigers defeated the Red in straight games, 30-24, 30-25, and 32-30, turning the tables on a Cornell team that swept them, 3-0, in Newman Arena on Oct. 14. Cornell had a chance for a third-game comeback, as late calls gave the Red a chance to take the game, but the team couldn’t rally at the end. “Penn and Princeton played very well,” Collins said. “We haven’t played our best in a few weeks and we’ve been getting by with some wins.” With the two losses, Cornell is just a half-game ahead of Yale in the conference standings. With a win over Brown on Tuesday – it’s final Ivy match of the season – Yale would force a playoff against the Red next weekend for the league’s NCAA national championship tournament bid. Last season, the Elis beat Cornell, 3-2, in a playoff game to earn a berth in the tournament. “I think we had a lapse this weekend,” Bishop said. “It happens and there’s nothing you can do about it. Now we have to move on … We still do control our own destiny.”Archived article by Olivia Dwyer Sun Assistant Sports Editor

ByNovember 14, 2005

It was a bittersweet end to the careers of Cornell men’s soccer’s seniors Kuda Wekwete, Pape Seye, and Jorge Rodriguez, as the Red fell 2-0 to Columbia this past Saturday. With their family and friends there to honor them before the game, the trio played with characteristic heart and intensity seen all season long, but it wasn’t enough to lift Cornell past a hungry Lions team looking for its first Ivy win of the season. With the loss, the Red closes out its 2005 season with a record of 3-10-2, 2-5-0 Ivy, while Columbia finishes at 4-12-1, 1-6-0 Ivy. While the seniors packed up their gear and stepped off the grass of Berman Field for the last time, the future of the men’s soccer program lingered behind on cold benches, wondering what had gone wrong. They rehashed missed marks, broken plays, and other moments of the game, but always returned to the disappointment of such a poor end to a promising season. “I feel absolutely horrible that we couldn’t get a win for Jorge, Pape, and Kuda,” said sophomore Kyle Lynch. “I just really wished that we could get this game for our seniors because all the hard work and commitment that they put in over this year and over four years,” said junior Brian Kuritzky. “3-10-2 – [The seniors] don’t deserve that. They deserve a ring on their finger.” Cornell opened the first half pushing play into Columbia’s defensive end, but the booters had trouble converting possessions into scoring opportunities. After controlling the opening minutes of the game, the Red settled into an even-sided, defensive struggle with the Lions. “We knew it was going to be a choppy game coming in because Columbia’s really good defensively,” Kuritzki said. “We just couldn’t get it going.” 27 minutes into the match, Columbia created the first real scoring opportunity of the game. Cornell freshman goalie Steve Lesser came charging out of the net to control a loose ball at the top of the box. Colliding with a Columbia forward, Lesser was unable to hold onto the ball, which squirted out to the Lion’s Tom Davison at the top of the 18. With an open net, Davison’s shot bounced of the right post, keeping the tied at 0-0. Cornell countered almost immediately with a chance of his own. Taking short cross out of the air, junior Tom Marks smacked a left-footed side-volley that forced Columbia keeper, Michael Testa to make a diving save to preserve the scoreless tie. Columbia caught the Red off guard in the second half, showing itself the more aggressive of the two sides. “I don’t think that we gave a lot of width to the game. I don’t think that we had a lot of width, especially in the second half,” said head coach Bryan Scales. “We ended up just running straight forward when we had it, instead of our flank midfielders getting wide to try and pull apart their defense.” Just over six minutes into the second half, the Lion’s clawed their way onto the scoreboard. Winning a corner kick, Columbia dropped a ball inside the Red’s box. Unable to make the initial clear, Cornell found itself at the mercy of Columbia’s Scott Waddell who was able to punch home the Lion’s first goal. “Any time the balls on the ground in your penalty box that’s an emergency,” Scales said. Refusing to let the Red find its bearings Columbia added a second goal just seven minutes later. Catching Cornell off guard with a counterattack, the Lion’s leading scorer, John Mulhern, pushed the ball to Cornell’s 18 before launching a shot at Lesser. The Cornell keeper blocked the shot, but was unable to finish the save as the ball popped over his head and into the back of the net. “The result is disappointing but I’m more disappointed in the performance. I just don’t think we showed up tonight and that’s just not a characteristic of our team which has competed all year,” Scales said. “Give credit to Columbia we knew that they were better than their record indicated.” Archived article by Paul Testa Sun Staff Writer